Dear !*SALUTATION*! !*LAST_NAME*!,
I suppose most of you are bothered by and concerned with spam mail. A couple of years ago some even predicted that the whole email system would collapse under the amount of spam-mail. Fortunately the situation hasn't become that bad - all the efforts by the authorities to clamp down on spammers, improved filtering at ISPs and corporate mail servers and personal firewalls and security software has kept, in my mind, the situation fairly well under control. For example in my case, a year or so ago i received 250-300 spams a day. Most likely, the same amount is still sent to me (my email address has been on different web pages for more than 10 years, that's why I am on most spammers lists), but I only receive about 60-80 a day now, the rest is stopped at my ISP. And of those 60-80 I receive, more than 90% are automatically cleaned out, especially those containing viruses, by my firewall and anti-virus software.
But to prevent our members to get spam mail because their email addresses where listed in our members' directory at our web site, I have now removed them. Even earlier, I hard-coded all email addresses so that they cannot be picked up by email harvesters.
E.g. our mail address looks like this in the HTML code: %66%63%63%6a%40%67%6f%6c%2e%63%6f%6d
If you want to know how you could hide your email address on a web page, click HERE.
But naturally there is no way to prevent some potential spammer to manually pick up the addresses, that's why we decided to take this precaution. So in case you need to know (for a legitimate reason...) the email address of some of our members, contact me. And as all decent group mailers (this is sent to about 600 recipients), I always give you an option to unsubscribe from the list (see link at the bottom of the page).

23 February - FCCJ Monthly Luncheon Meeting

Come and find out what the new Apple building in Ginza and Finland has in common at our next luncheon meeting on Wednesday 23 February.
Our speaker is Mr. Hirokuni Yoshida, President, Outokumpu K.K. and the theme of his presentation is: Outokumpu and their current business in Japan - worldwide success through cooperation
Details:

Profile of Hirokuni Yoshida
Mr. Yoshida was born in 1950 in Tokyo. He graduated (BA Econ.) from Musashi University and joined the Steel Sales Division of
Nichimen Corp. in 1974. In 1987 he moved to Outokumpu Japan K.K. as Sales Manager and was appointed President in 1994.
Between 2002 and 2004 he was President of AvestaPolarit Japan K.K. (AvestaPolarit was established through a merger between Outokumpu stainless steel and Avesta-Sheffield). When AvestaPolarit and Outokumpu was merged in 2004, Mr. Yoshida became President of the new Outokumpu K.K.
Hirokuni Yoshida is married with two children.

Note: At the meeting we will also get an introduction of the new NPO Japan Finland Culture and Friendship Association.
If you would like participate but have not yet registered, please click link at right.

9 March - Starting & Running a Business in Japan: Foreign entrepeneurs share their secrets of success

This is the first in a series of workshops designed
for those who are thinking about starting their own business or are already
running their own business in Japan. Our panel consists of some of the most
successful foreign entrepreneurs living in Japan today. They will share
their insights on a variety of topics and also will be available for
questions from the audience.
Details:

Whether you are working on your plan to be
successful in the Japanese market or just curious about who besides you has
a proven formula, the evening should prove exciting. Join us on March 9 at
the Canadian embassy theatre to hear:

During five consecutive years, Excellent Finland SISU has been published in cooperation between the Embassy of Finland, FINPRO and Silver Stone Co., Ltd. and enjoyed positive reception in Japan. Many FCCJ companies have utilized the opportunity for the marketing and PR purposes by advertising in it and distributing it to their stakeholders in and outside of Japan.
The Excellent Finland SISU magazine is one of the few publications concentrating on the PR of the Finnish companies as well as Finnish history, culture, lifestyle, industry, etc. In addition, the coming issue (Vol. 6) will present articles in the connection with the EXPO 2005 AICHI. Finland is joining the Nordic pavilion together with the other Nordic countries under the theme of "OASIS IN THE NORTH" and the SISU magazine will be utilized at the Expo. Therefore, we encourage you to positively consider about advertising in the coming SISU magazine and take the advantage of the additional exposure brought by the Expo.
For more information and advertising opportunities, please contact Ms. Satoko Agawa at Finpro, by phone 03-5447-6000, or by clicking link below.

Finnish government gives the nod to fifth nuclear reactor
The Finnish government in a Thursday session rubberstamped the construction of the country's fifth nuclear reactor.
The political decision on the power station was taken three years ago. The Council of State made a framework decision on the reactor in January 2002 and in April of the same year Parliament decreed that building the station was in the best interest of society.
The municipality of Eurajoki issued a building permit on Monday.
In December 2003, Teollisuuden Voima Oy, operator of two of the existing reactors, ordered the 1,600 megawatt pressurised water reactor from France's Framatome and the turbine from Siemens of Germany.
Teollisuuden Voima plans to have the station online by 2009 and operate it for 60 years. The estimated cost is 3 billion euros.

Before you enter into a dangerous endeavour, be sure to have a safe footing...
This is rather hilarious. If you drive your car into the water, I suggest that you do not hire "Walsh's Recovery" to bring it up. Click images below to get a clear picture....

ABOUT THIS BULLETIN
This bulletin is published by the Finnish Chamber of Commerce in Japan (FCCJ) and distributed to over 580 recipients among its members and related organizations.
FCCJ was established in April 1999 to promote trade and economic exchange between Japan and Finland and has today 72 corporate members, 16 individual and one special member.